


Never Again

by FalconCommaWinter



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Kissing, M/M, Pre-Stanford
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-11-18 05:25:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11284596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FalconCommaWinter/pseuds/FalconCommaWinter
Summary: Sam and Dean have a misunderstanding, and a bartender gives Dean a little advice to help him fix it.





	Never Again

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all, I just discovered Supernatural last year toward the end of Season 11. I fell in love and then discovered fic. Let's just say my life hasn't been the same. I just wanted to try it out, so let me know what you think, mmkay?

“Please don’t.”

“What?”

Dean moved back so that he went from lips almost touching Sam’s to eyes being able to take in his entire face.

Sam eyes were downcast.

“I just…I don’t want…I-”

Dean backed up a few steps after that, stopping halfway across the stained motel carpet.

“No. It’s OK. You don’t have to explain, Sam,” Dean said, his voice lowering as he spoke, ending his brothers name in a whisper. “I get it.”

Sam’s eyes shot up to meet Dean’s.

“Dean, it’s not-”

“I said I get it, Sam.”

Dean still wasn’t at his usual volume, but Sam heard a hardness creeping in his voice that he was beginning to see in Dean’s eyes.  
“But you don’t, I-”

And then Dean was grabbing his jacket off the back of one of the wooden chairs at the tiny table near the bathroom.

“Look, Sam. You don’t have to explain it to me. I know that what we have going on is a little fucked up. Hell, it’s a lot fucked up. And you’re a smart kid, Sammy, so I knew you’d figure it out sooner or later. And I fucking get it. I get what would happen if Dad – if he ever found out, or Bobby, or Pastor Jim. And yea, you’re the smart one. But even I don’t need you to spell it out for me.”

He walked toward the door, but Sam’s freakishly long legs landed him beside Dean before he reached it.

“Wait,” Sam said, grabbing for Dean’s arm. Sam’s breathing was a little harder than it should have been for a run from one end of a room to the other.

Dean paused for a second, then threw off Sam’s arm.

“I said wait, Dean,” and Sam grabbed for him again.

Dean pushed at him a second time.

“I’m going out. I need some air.”

“Fucking listen to me, Dean,” Sam said and snatched at Dean’s arm, harder still, forcing him around and crowding in close.

Dean didn’t realize he’d swung until he saw Sam staring up at him from the floor with wide eyes and a split lip dripping a calm, lazy line of his blood down his chin. 

Dean’s eyes mirrored his brothers’ as he fled from the room.

\----

“Are you sure you’re old enough for that, sweetheart?” the bartender asked after Dean ordered a beer.

He reached into his pocket and handed her his I.D. without a word.

She looked back and forth between the card and the boy in front of her at least twice before she was convinced. She finally grins. 

“Such a babyface,” she said, handing back his card and, a few seconds later, his beer.

After she watched him, Dean, according to his license, take only a sip in the 10 minutes he’d been there, and while no one else needed her, she parked herself in front of him.

“What seems to be the problem, kid?” She asked.

Dean looked up, startled, as if he’d forgotten where he was.

“Nothing.” He wasn’t really in the mood to self-censor his life story for this woman.

She pushed strands of her long, curly red mane behind her ear. Dean actually kind of dug red heads when he was looking for that sort of thing, but she seemed to be in her early 50’s, so she probably wouldn’t have been willing anyway.

“That’s bullshit. I know a miserable face when I see one. I’ve seen too many of them in that very seat,” she said, poking Dean in the chest as she grabbed a towel and started wiping the counter around him.

He sighed.

“I got into a fight with my…boyfriend,” he said, blushing at the last word and its automatic confession.

“Boyfriend, huh?” she smirked. “Wouldn’t have guessed it.” After a few seconds of staring, she said, “That’s hot.”  
Dean snorted and felt his face heat a little more.

“Yea well, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want to be with me anymore. At least, that’s what he said before I hit him.”

Dean lost the added color in his cheeks from the admission.

“You two do that often? Hit on each other?” she asked.

“Not usually,” he replied. “Not unless we’re sparring. We’re…athletes.”

He took another sip of his warming beer, and then rested his head in his hands. When he resurfaced, tears were almost tipping out of his eyes. 

“I didn’t mean to hit him,” Dean said. “If he doesn’t want this, I don’t fucking have a right to be angry.”

His voice softened. “I’m supposed to look out for him, not be the one he needs protection from.”

The bartender began rubbing his arm when the tears flowed.

“Hey, hey, hey, darling. Don’t do that. Don’t do that because I doubt he wants you to. And you seem like the guy who thinks about what he wants more than yourself,” she said.

“If you’re sorry you lost your cool, tell him that. And tell him it’ll never happen again.” She squeezed Dean’s arm so tightly that he looked up. Her eyes burned into his with a fire he wasn’t expecting. She leaned in, noses almost touching and said, “But you only say that if you mean it. You only say it if it’s the goddamned truth.” She let him go.

Dean took a shaky breath.

“It will be,” he promised. “I won’t hurt Sammy again. I love him too much.”

He pushed the beer away, getting ready to stand when she spoke again.

“If he loves you, he’ll either stay with you, or tell you why, deep in his heart, he can’t. And if you love him, you’ll listen.”

Dean reached into his back pocket for his wallet, but she saw the motion and shook her head.  
“On the house, sweetie. Now go make it right.”

\----

When Dean opened the door to the hotel, he saw Sam lying on the bed closest to the door. The remote was in his hand and he was fully clothed, but he clearly had been sleeping. His eyes jerked to Dean.

Neither said a word as Dean made his way to the other bed. He didn’t look at Sam until he was sitting and turning to face him. His breath caught when he noticed his brother’s purple, enlarged lip. There was still a little blood on his chin, and the rest was on his long, green shirt sleeve, mixing to form a macabre shade that Dean didn’t want to know the name of.

“Sammy,” he said, reaching for his chin but hesitating when he reminded himself that he caused this pain to his brother. His hand dropped to his lap.

“Sammy, listen,” he tried again, “I should have never done that, even if I didn’t want to hear what you had to say. I won’t do it again. I promise you I’ll never do it again.”

Sam just stared at him. Dean didn’t see the hurt or anger he expected, but he also didn’t see any other identifiable emotions on Sam’s face.

“I also think that if you want to stop this,” he gestured between them, “then I gotta be OK with that. Because I want you to be happy, man. Whatever that means.”

Still, Sam said nothing, showed nothing.

Dean began to worry about what he said wrong, and eventually he said, “Sam? Will you say something?”

“I was just waiting,” Sam said.

“Waiting for what?”

“Waiting for you to say what you needed to say. Apparently you’re the only one who can talk around here. If I forget, you hit me.”

Dean winced. He finally saw an emotion he could name. Irritation.

“I’m sorry, Sam. I know I shouldn’t have hit you and I’m going to regret that every day of my life.”

Sam laughed.

“That’s not the problem, Dean! The problem is that I have something to say and you can’t give me five minutes to try to get it out!”

Another one. Anger.

“So say it, Sam.” Dean sighed. He didn’t think he needed an explanation for Sam wanting to end this thing between them, but he was in no place to deny Sam anything after that afternoon.

Same took a deep breath, apparently not expecting that response.

“I just wanted to tell you earlier that I love you, really fucking love you, but I can’t do this anymore, Dean.”

Dean wanted to cut him off, but he didn’t dare.

“Look. In a few months from now, you’ll look up, and I won’t be here. And I can’t keep this going when I know that you’ll hate me for it. I can’t make you hate me.”

“Sammy, what-”

Dean was cut off when Sam pulled an envelope from under the pillow next to him and shoved it into his hand.

The front said it was to a Samuel Winchester from Stanford University Office of Admissions. Dean opened the envelope, read the letter twice, and shoved it back inside. He laid it down on the sheet beside him. 

“God, Sammy,” he said, low again. 

“I know, Dean. I should have told-”

Sam was cut off when Dean dove from his bed to Sam’s, tackling his brother, wrapping his legs up with Sam’s and then rolling them both over on their sides.

“Yea,” Dean said, running hands through his brother’s hair, “I wish you had told me, too.” He kissed Sam gently, making sure not to hurt his busted lip but loving the slow warmth it built in his stomach.

“You’re not mad, Dean?” Sam asked. He brought his hand up to rest on Dean’s cheek, his thumb stroking in circles.

“No, you idiot, I’m not. We can figure this one out.” He paused, not wanting to lie to Sam. “And if we can’t figure it out, we still have a little time, right?”

Sam’s eyes dropped from Dean’s face.

“Would you think about coming with me?” Sam asked.

Dean bit his bottom lip, not sure what to say.

“Why don’t we cross that bridge when we get there?” he asked, kissing Sam again.

Sam smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Ok, Dean.”

A kiss to the forehead from Dean. He sighed, this time from contentment as he pulled Sam in close.

“I’m proud of you, bitch.”

“Yea right, jerk.”


End file.
